Fifteen students and two teaching staff from St Pauls School and Wellington College travelled to Pensulo Village to work on a much needed Assembly Hall at Joshua's non-profit Secondary School.
The team built up the walls for the assembly hall and the latrine blocks on the site, hand mixing cement and learning to lay bricks, completing one long wall in one day! They also spent time at the local feeding centre, helping the local ladies and playing with the children.
Although they were only on site for 4 days they, in their own words, achieved a huge amount: "Fantastic - I've learnt more than I thought I would. Tonight made me realise how valuable our contribution is". Annie
For the past three years, students from Tonbridge Grammar
travelled to Swaziland. This year was their first year working with
partners Joshua. Fifteen students and two staff continued work in
Pensulo Village on an Assembly Hall for the Secondary School.The team completed the mammoth task of building the stage area of the Assembly Hall, as well as spending time with the local knitting group and learning about common medical issues at the local Clinic. They also visited a local feeding centre, helping the local ladies and playing with the children.
How this will make a difference:
Joshua Secondary School is an exam centre for the local area. The Assembly Hall at the Secondary school will mean that students who are currently forced out of their classrooms, and therefore miss school during exam periods will now be able to continue with lessons. Exams can be taken in the hall. Registration can also now take place, no matter what the weather; and the hall can be rented for community events e.g. weddings to generate an income for the school, which can be used to buy resources and maintain the grounds and building.
A team of ten students and two teachers travelled from Hurstpierpoint College
to Chilingani village near Blantyre, to work at their partner school.
This is the third time that Hurst students have worked at the school.The team worked hard on a double classroom block at Chilingani primary school, raising close to £10,000. The classroom was at foundation level, and the team worked with local builders to build up the walls - laying bricks and hand mixing cement, seeing huge progress. They also painted and pointed, seeing the trusses go up ready or roofing before they left. They also spent time at the local feeding centre, helping the local ladies and playing with the children.
How this will make a difference:
Numbers of students per classroom in Malawi can reach 80 per class. This makes teaching and learning very difficult, and often leads to 'tiered classes', with classrooms being shared between different year groups. A new classroom block will make the world of difference and will vastly improve the teaching and learning conditions at Chilingani. Read more about their time here.
The Quest Overseas Summer Team have been living in Manyowe and building a new feeding centre there – working very hard from the foundations up. Joffat has been brilliant as usual, inviting everyone to his home for dinner. From the second week they’ve also been helping out at the feeding centre currently in operation – in their words “This was definitely an eye opening experience, and many of us considered this to be both a high and a low. I think for the first time, we got to really see how orphans live here in Malawi - this was a perspective many of us had not yet been aware of. However, this was a high as we were so touched by how happy the children were. Its clear that the community here are really making the best out of an unfortunate situation. This makes us hopeful that this situation will be a thing of the past as the years go on.” Read more here.
The Quest School Team of 13 from Epsom & Ewell High School spent 2 weeks in Kachumbe village, where they’ve built a playground from tyres and wood for the kids at the feeding centre, as well as repairing doors and doing some painting at Kachumbe and at Nkanamwano feeding centre. They also spent a few days helping Kumwandika community to build a pig pen for their new pig project. Among other things the also enjoyed what Malawi had to offer – including eating mice! Climbing Mulanje, visiting Salima, and a safari to Zambia. They’ve just got back to the UK. Read more about their time here.
